creation of god

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth had no form. It was empty, covered with darkness and water. Then the Spirit of God hovered over the water, and God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good.

Then He divided the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And the evening and the morning were the first day.

God created the Earth. Copyrighted.

Then God said, “Let there be a great expanse of air to divide the waters below from the waters above.”

And God called the expanse “heaven.” And the evening and the morning were the second day.

Then God said, “Let the water under the heaven be gathered together in one place, and let the dry land appear,” and it happened.

And God called the dry land “earth”; and the gathering together of the waters He called “seas”: and God saw that it was good. Then God said, “Let the earth produce grass, and herbs, and fruit trees, all yielding after their own kind,” and it happened; And God saw that it was good.

And the evening and the morning were the third day.

Sun and moon. Copyrighted.

Then God said, “Let there be lights in the heavens; and let them be for signs and seasons, and for days, and years.” God made two great lights; the sun to rule by day and the moon to rule by night. He also made the stars.

And He set them all in the heavens to give light upon the earth; And God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

Fish and the Birds. Copyrighted.

Then God said, “Let the waters abound with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth.” So God created great whales and everything that moves in the water, and winged animals—all these producing after their kinds; and God saw that it was good. And He blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful, and multiply.” And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.

Then God said, “Let the earth be filled with living creatures.” So He made the animals on the earth, the cattle, and every thing that crawls upon the earth—all producing after their kinds; and God saw that it was good.

This question is a major objection that atheists put forward to justify their disbelief. Bertrand Russell (1872–1970), a famous British philosopher, in his influential little essay, Why I am not a Christian, put this forward as his first objection.1 Today’s atheists repeat the objection, including Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion) and Australia’s own Philip Adams at the 2010 Global Atheists’ Congress in Melbourne Australia, who said,

“The great argument for God was that there had to be a Creation, a beginning. … But my objection was simple. If God was the beginning who began God?”2

This principle of causation is so fundamental that if I said that the chair you are sitting on, which must have had a beginning, just popped into existence without any cause, you might justifiably think I need a psychiatric assessment!

The universe had a beginning; almost no one disputes that, because the laws of thermodynamics demand it: the universe is running down and it cannot have been running down forever, or it would have already run down. No stars would be still churning out energy and we would not be here.

Some have proposed one universe giving birth to another, but again, there cannot be an infinite series of such births and deaths, as each cycle must have less energy available than the last and if this had been happening for eternity, the death of everything would have already happened.

There must have been a beginning.

One of the most established principles of logic / science / reality is the principle of causality: something that has a beginning has a sufficient cause. The principle is not, ‘Everything has a cause’; Bertrand Russell misstated it. No, the principle is, ‘Everything that has a beginning has a sufficient cause’. Just a moment’s thought confirms this—something which had no beginning has no need of a cause. Furthermore, a cause has to be sufficient, or adequate. ‘You were found in a cabbage patch’ is not a sufficient explanation for your existence.

This principle of causation is so fundamental that if I said that the chair you are sitting on, which must have had a beginning, just popped into existence without any cause, you might justifiably think I need a psychiatric assessment!

Today’s atheists, who like to use words like ‘rational’, ‘reasonable’ and ‘scientific’ in describing their beliefs, believe that the greatest beginning of all—that of the universe—had no cause whatsoever! Some admit it is a problem, but they claim that saying ‘God did it’ explains nothing because you then have to explain where God came from. But is this a valid objection?

What must the cause of the universe have been like?

The cause of the universe must have been non-material because if the cause was material / natural, it would be subject to the same laws of decay as the universe. That means it would have to have had a beginning itself and you have the same problem as cycles of births and deaths of universes. So the cause of the universe’s beginning must have been super-natural, i.e. non-material or spirit—a cause outside of space-matter-time. Such a cause would not be subject to the law of decay and so would not have a beginning. That is, the cause had to be eternal spirit.

Furthermore, the cause of the universe had to be incredibly powerful; the sheer size and energy seen in the universe together speak of that power; there had to be a sufficient cause.

That sounds like the God of the Bible to me. The Bible reveals the Creator of the universe as:

eternal

Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God. (Psalm 90:2)

all-powerful

Yours, O LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is yours. Yours is the kingdom, O LORD, and you are exalted as head above all. Both riches and honour come from you, and you rule over all. In your hand are power and might, and in your hand it is to make great and to give strength to all. (1 Chronicles 29:11–12)

spirit (non-material)

God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth. (John 4:24)

Note that the Bible says, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). Here God created time itself. Only One who is outside of time, that is, timeless, or eternal, could do this.

Now to ask where someone who is eternal, someone who had no beginning, came from (‘Who created God?’) is like asking, ‘To whom is the bachelor married?’ It is an irrational question.

The Bible matches reality, which is not surprising when we consider that it claims to be from the Creator Himself.